Unable to copy file - access to the path is denied

Question

I am using Visual Studio 2005. After taking code from version control first, the c#.net application runs correctly. But, after doing some modifications, when I build I am getting the following error:

Error 383 Unable to copy file "..\root\leaf\Bin\Debug\test.Resources.xml" to "Bin\Debug\test.Resources.xml". Access to the path 'Bin\Debug\test.Resources.xml' is denied. li.rollmodel

Does anybody know why this issue is occurring?

Edit I can see that my entire project source code folder is Read-only, and I am not able to remove the read-only property.

First, can anybody tell me how to remove the Read-only property for this folder? I have tried removing it but the read-only property persists. I tried from the version-control side also and that did not work, either.

Is this on a network share? Do you have administrative access on your machine? This question might be a better fit on serverfault or superuser. — arunkumar, Aug 20 '11 at 06:42
i solved that problem by manually copying the file from one location to required location,porbably the problem is related to MSBUILD with readonly file — ricky, Aug 20 '11 at 07:44

score 316 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 05 '12 at 20:37

316

I solved this problem by deleting the contentious files from bin folder and rebuilding the project.

answered Apr 05 '12 at 20:37

DiligentKarma

5,198
1
30
33

54

old post, I know, but I had the same issue just now. Make sure that VS is also closed as it will deny access to delete the folder in some cases – Eon Jun 21 '13 at 11:24
Worked last time when I had this problem, but now NOT anymore. I allowed Everyone all the permissions over the bin folder and no result. – Dalibor Sep 09 '16 at 11:16
I had a similar fix. I solved it by deleted the package source (aka packages\ ) – Dan Csharpster Jan 20 '17 at 16:14
2

Little note: I didn't understand, at first, I have to delete these files in the output folder of the main project and not in the output folder of the dll. So, warning here :) – Piero Alberto Mar 01 '17 at 15:58
6

In my case, even closing VS was not enough to free the folder and allow me to delete it - ProcessExplorer showed that "VBCSCompiler.exe" was still using it. In this case, signing out of and into Windows (or just killing the process) did the trick, allowing me to rebuild the solution and get everything working again. – S. Jensen Sep 15 '17 at 13:58
2

in my case the reason that folder and the solution turned into ReadOnly and subsequently VS had trouble building it, was because some file failed to synch to GoogleDrive and got somehow locked by that process. So for me to rebuild properly I had to close GoogleDrive and then it built just fine. – konrad Sep 20 '17 at 21:21
Did not work in VS2017, but I don't get these errors when I build in the release mode. – S52 Oct 20 '17 at 17:12
2

I found Bitdefender Antivirus Free to be the culprit. – Warwick Dec 08 '17 at 09:39
1

Using Visual Studio 2017 with Dropbox. Had to renaming the bin folder to bin_old in the offending project then allowed me to rebuild. – Brian Dec 17 '17 at 20:25

score 133 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 15 '17 at 08:37

133

Just make sure that the folder is NOT Read-Only and rebuild the solution

edited Mar 15 '17 at 08:37

Patrick Hofman

153,850
22
249
325

answered Jul 16 '14 at 03:48

Wahid Bitar

13,776
13
78
106

14

I am trying to remove the 'Read-only' checkbox filled with Green color. When I click 'Apply' and then 'Ok', and then check the properties of that folder again, I can again see in the previous state (again having 'Read-only' checkbox filled with Green color). Anyone having solution on this? – Vikram Jul 30 '15 at 15:55
Also, make sure the file is not locked. In my case, the file was on a share and someone else had it open. – Dan Bechard Oct 01 '15 at 18:20
Close Visual Studio before removing read only attribute. Because the file in question may be in use (locked) – Gautam Jain Nov 07 '16 at 14:55
4

Created a Visual Studio Extension for clearing ReadOnly and Hidden attribute of dlls which blocking the build. UnBlockDllExtension : https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=NithinVR.UnBlockDllExtension – vrnithinkumar Feb 21 '17 at 18:37

score 78 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 18 '13 at 11:51

78

I solved this problem: Close Visual Studio, open it again and load the solution, Rebuild your solution. My problem occurred using TFS and VIsual Studio 2010.

answered Apr 18 '13 at 11:51

jordenysp

2,644
22
17

score 53 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 07 '17 at 08:03

53

Kill process VBCSCompiler.exe and rebuild.

edited Sep 07 '17 at 08:03

Hakan Fıstık

16,800
14
110
131

answered Aug 15 '17 at 12:05

MuriloKunze

15,195
17
54
82

Alejandro Haro · Answer 5 · 2022-08-12T15:29:20.120

26

Run your Visual Studio as Administrator. Or you can add write permission to "Users" on the output folder

edited Aug 12 '22 at 15:29

answered Jun 26 '13 at 19:39

Alejandro Haro

1,355
17
14

1

Note: here is a short and simple way to always run as administrator by default https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12257110/can-you-force-visual-studio-to-always-run-as-an-administrator-in-windows-8 – wmebane Nov 06 '17 at 21:07
1

This answer told me enough that I knew to just add write permission to "Users" on my output folder - and that instantly solved my problem (which was that I couldn't publish even the first time). – X Goodrich Oct 25 '19 at 21:22
2

What an insanely dangerous suggestion. Not only is it irresponsible to advise anyone uncertain enough about what is going on to bypass security, building as admin will hide any deployment problems your code has. – Paul Childs Feb 16 '21 at 00:16

Heitor Corrêa · Answer 6 · 2012-07-08T22:53:17.013

I stepped into this problem too.

First go and check if you have mapped your bin and obj folder to the Source Control program.

This may be turning your files from binaries folders into read only archives, which make impossible to visual studio to overwrite them when it compiles the code.

Go and remove the mapping from these folders, check the changes and try again.

My problem occurred using TFS(Team foundation server) and Visual Studio 2010.

Hope this helps someone.

score 18 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 17 '16 at 16:14

18

In my case it was the antivirus which blocked the file.

answered Dec 17 '16 at 16:14

Claudiu Constantin

2,138
27
38

score 14 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 12 '21 at 19:53

14

In my case, avast anti-virus quarantined the [app-name].exe file that needs to be copied so from the avast app, I had to go to protection > Quarantine, click the menu button beside the file and click 'restore and add exception' as shown below

answered Sep 12 '21 at 19:53

Olawale david

1,457
1
9
13

score 11 · Answer 9 · edited Feb 14 '17 at 22:04

I use Visual Studio 2013. I faced this problem 2 times:

On first occasion, I was running Visual Studio without Administrator rights. So, I closed VS and started it using 'Run as administrator' option. This solved my problem.
On second occasion, I restarted VS many times, every time making sure that I am running it as an administrator. Also, I rebuilt solution many times. But, in spite of that I was getting error. After that, I removed the concerned file from the target location (the file was already present may be from the previous build at the location where it tries to copy to) and rebuilt the solution. After that, error went away and everything ran smoothly!

deleting already presented files on to target folder will works for me — Saad Awan, Jul 30 '20 at 12:14

score 10 · Answer 10 · answered Feb 27 '19 at 04:56

10

First go to location of the file. Then right click on the folder of the file -> Properties -> Unchecked Read Only Option and apply to files and its sub folders. It resolved my issue. Happy Coding!

answered Feb 27 '19 at 04:56

Vinayak Savale

538
6
7

tomRedox · Answer 11 · 2017-04-06T11:14:59.270

This has reared it's head again in Visual Studio 2017, in this case the cause is the Application Insights process ServiceHub.DataWarehouseHost.exe.

There is a workaround discussed in the thread warning MSB3026: Could not copy "obj\Debug\netcoreapp1.1\src.pdb" to "bin\Debug\netcoreapp1.1\src.pdb", which is to add a pre-build event to the project to kill the process every time the project is built. Quoting from that link:

Right click properties on project

Choose properties

Build Events

Pre-build event command line

taskkill /IM ServiceHub.DataWarehouseHost.exe /F 2>nul 1>nul
Exit 0

Save and build

score 7 · Answer 12 · edited Apr 12 '18 at 17:21

Can any body know why this issue is coming?

Looking at your response that you resolved your problem by manual copying, I would say that the code you were working on was made by some other user (with administrator privileges too) so it was locked to you. By performing copy --? paste, you made your OWN copy of the source with all access you required. The only thing to notice is that, in this case if this other developer will need to work on your copy, he/she will jump in pretty same problem you got before.

score 5 · Answer 13 · answered Sep 06 '18 at 05:35

Old post, but this zombie is hitting VS 2017 (I haven't dug into why it's just "some" projects). In this case, it's not user permissions, rather IIS Express process is still using the files.

You'll see the icon in your task tray

Right Click
Exit
You should be able to rebuild without this annoying "permission denied" message.

This is also why "restarting Visual Studio" will "fix" the issue. Doing so, stops IIS Express.

Hth...

score 4 · Answer 14 · answered Jul 16 '12 at 18:15

4

I re-added all of my non-.NET dependencies / references and it did the trick.

answered Jul 16 '12 at 18:15

shawn

591
4
2

score 4 · Answer 15 · answered Oct 02 '13 at 15:22

4

I resolved this issue myself. The problem was I had the solution opened in another place. After closing it it works

answered Oct 02 '13 at 15:22

Henley

21,258
32
119
207

David Leitner · Answer 16 · 2015-03-17T10:06:32.427

Had the same problem, but restarting Visual Studio every time was no option for me, as the issue occurs sometimes very often.

I handled it by installing Unlocker (tries to install any toolbar at installation, so don't forget to uncheck this), this application gives me fast access to rename/delete a locked ".xml"-File. I know that this only a workaround too, but for me it was the fastest solution to solve this problem.

score 4 · Answer 17 · answered Jan 16 '21 at 11:35

Most of the answers I have seen are objectively exploring possible issues with the environment, which is probably correct for 99% of the people running into this issue (unable to copy file from ... to ... access is denied).

I thought I should share my experience for the 1% who ran into this problem due to misc reasons.

I wrote a batch file renaming program that i use to act on tens of thousands of files, and my AntiVirus interpreted it as trojan and auto quarantined it. Having this path sit in my AntiVirus' blacklist, visual studio can never copy the *.exe into the bin folder, hence resulting unable to copy .exe.

My resolution is to whitelist this path and the issue is resolve.

Cheers.

score 3 · Answer 18 · answered Oct 03 '12 at 14:30

I created this problem when I added a new setup project to the solution, and then added files directly from the /bin/release folder of the main application project to the application files folder of the setup project. The source control of the setup project was consistently blocking me from completing a build of the main application project.

Solution: create a separate dump folder outside of any of the projects that will contain all the files to be included in the install, and add them from there. It's a pain because now I have to remember to copy all the files for each new install package. I might see if I can do something with post-build actions our an automated build to make the process smoother.

score 3 · Answer 19 · answered May 26 '14 at 04:14

3

If you copy any files across to a solution, make sure the files are not in Read Only mode. Right click on file and uncheck the attribute option solved my problem.

answered May 26 '14 at 04:14

InitialV

96
1
5

score 3 · Answer 20 · answered Jun 06 '14 at 14:50

3

I had the same error but I am using Perforce version control. Here's how I fixed it.

Closed Perforce P4V client
Restarted Visual Studio 2010 (might not be necessary)
Rebuilt the project, which succeeded
Felt exceptionally happy and disgusted at the same time

answered Jun 06 '14 at 14:50

Madmartigan

143
1
7

1

I have the same setup, but couldn't get to steps 3 and 4 :( – user3260977 Oct 10 '14 at 18:42

score 3 · Answer 21 · answered Dec 30 '14 at 18:19

I also had same problem. I got error messages that related to cannot copy since access to path denied. In my case all my dll's and xml files and so on are place at D:\TFS\Example\Bin\Debug folder.

I right clicked on Bin folder and clicked Properties and saw that Read-only check box is checked under Attributes.

I un-checked Read only check box and cliked Apply and clicked OK on the new popup that is shown.

I went back to Visual Studio and build my solution which was giving me error messages.

Voilaa.. This time it build successfully without errors.

I donot know whether this is perfect but I did this to solve my issue.

score 3 · Answer 22 · answered Jul 04 '15 at 00:07

3

Check Task Manager and make sure you don't have a devenv.exe process hanging. Kill the runaway process and try again.

answered Jul 04 '15 at 00:07

Hazen Hills Software

96
3

score 3 · Answer 23 · answered May 03 '19 at 15:25

3

Go to file's path then un-check read only checkbox of this file.

answered May 03 '19 at 15:25

Ramy Othman

63
6

score 2 · Answer 24 · answered May 15 '13 at 19:56

2

I know its an old thread but for those looking for answers, like me a few minutes ago, I recommend trying to restart your computer first. That alone fixed for me. Before could not even manualy copy to the folder.

answered May 15 '13 at 19:56

Joao Leme

9,598
3
33
47

score 2 · Answer 25 · answered Mar 03 '14 at 10:44

2

Just right click on your MVC project and click on the clean option. I had a similar problem and cleaning the project before rebuilding resolved it for me.

answered Mar 03 '14 at 10:44

Ehsan

31,833
6
56
65

score 2 · Answer 26 · answered Feb 24 '15 at 16:41

2

I had also the same problem. I fixed it by unchecking the Read-only properties of root folder.

answered Feb 24 '15 at 16:41

Rajan Kumar Kharel

129
1
2

score 2 · Answer 27 · answered Jul 23 '15 at 11:39

2

I also had this issue. Here's how is resolved this

Exclude bin folder from project.
Close visual studio.
Disk cleanup of C drive.
Re-open project in visual studio.
And then rebuild solution.
Run project.

This process is works for me.

answered Jul 23 '15 at 11:39

Manoj

4,951
2
30
56

score 2 · Answer 28 · answered Mar 06 '18 at 22:55

2

I was able to resolve the problem by removing the target file which is complaining(in your example "Bin\Debug\test.Resources.xml") from bin folder of target web site and re build it.That fixed it for me.

answered Mar 06 '18 at 22:55

Rama Krshna Ila

486
3
11

score 2 · Answer 29 · answered Apr 18 '20 at 20:48

I tried everything here, somehow deleting all the bin and obj folders in my project didn't work. Releasing the folders from other processes did nothing. Restarting did nothing. Removing read only from every file by unchecking it on the main folder didn't help.

Every dependency ended up adding themselves to the problem. Building directly in the dependencies' folder worked so I was confused. I was going to duplicate this question but I found something that worked.

You know what worked?

dotnet clean

Back then it had sometimes been necessary to run it multiple times. Not sure about now. It really ticked me off. — Dominic Grenier, Dec 15 '22 at 18:15

score 1 · Answer 30 · answered Aug 12 '16 at 19:56

1

Make sure you append the file name after the path name (path\fileName.extension). I spent more than one hour without note this.

answered Aug 12 '16 at 19:56

Marlon Vidal

669
4
14

score 1 · Answer 31 · answered Jan 30 '18 at 10:10

1

Changing the output path worked for me in Visual Studio 2015. This should help - Changing the Build Output directory

answered Jan 30 '18 at 10:10

close2zero

85
8

score 1 · Answer 32 · answered Sep 21 '18 at 20:28

1) close the visual studio solution

2) navigate to command prompt --> run as administrator--> iisreset /stop

3) navigate to c--> Windows --> Microsoft.Net --> Framework64--> v4.030319--> Temporary Asp.NET Files --> Delete all the files and folders in this path.

4) Navigate back to command prompt --> iisreset /start

5) Now open the visual studio --> run as administrator --> clean the solution and build it(don't rebuild..just build worked for me)

score 1 · Answer 33 · answered Nov 22 '19 at 08:17

I had the same issue, To resolved this i had checked/done several things

What Didn't work

1) Read/write permissions were given to directory 
2) Restarted visual studio
3) Tried deleting visual studio temp files

What worked at last

Just paste the command given by Fred Morrison into the "Package Manager Console":

Get-Process | Where-Object -Property Name -EQ 'VBCSCompiler' | Stop-Process -Force -Verbose

Note: Just an observation Restarting Visual studio might not work in this case but restarting system can because stoppin process "VBCSCompiler" was the solution so we can do it either way.

Fadi · Answer 34 · 2022-06-28T12:03:32.777

1

For those who still face this issue in VS 2019

1- Open terminal

2- write 'dotnet clean '

edited Jun 28 '22 at 12:03

answered Feb 08 '22 at 14:03

Fadi

585
4
22

score 0 · Answer 35 · answered Feb 04 '14 at 16:28

So I just ran into the same issue, the cause of mine, I had my development folder shared so I could use a mac as a build host for an IOS application using Xamarin. The project was running on mac which took ownership of the dll therefore I could not make changes to that dll from anywhere else. Simply stopping the application on the mac returned ownership back to me which allowed full access again. I hope this make since.

score 0 · Answer 36 · answered May 14 '14 at 18:46

0

Clear all referenced libraries in "bin\debug" and right click to Solution in solution explorer after click to "Clean Solution".

And Rebuild!!

answered May 14 '14 at 18:46

TC Tarım Köy İşleri

656
6
10

score 0 · Answer 37 · answered Aug 01 '14 at 09:55

0

I ran into this issue multiple times, and the solution which I found is to delete the debug folder and then rebuild your solution/project. Worked for me!!

answered Aug 01 '14 at 09:55

patil.rahulk

574
1
3
13

score 0 · Answer 38 · answered Feb 08 '17 at 23:28

This can be a strange by-product of loading source initially from source control (TFS etc.) where all files and folders are write protected. Go to the top level directory and check the properties and you could find the Read-only attribute checked. Uncheck that and the system should ask you if you want all the dirs under the top level to be set the writable. This should fix it.

score 0 · Answer 39 · answered Feb 21 '17 at 14:47

0

I tried to log off and log back in and it worked for me. Hopefully this will help someone else.

answered Feb 21 '17 at 14:47

desiguy

652
2
9
25

score 0 · Answer 40 · answered Oct 03 '17 at 12:59

0

In my case, I ported a project from Windows to OSX, using Visual Studio Community 7.1.5 for Mac. What did the trick was disabling the Use MSBuild engine (recommended for this type of project)option on the project preferences:

answered Oct 03 '17 at 12:59

Santiago Martí Olbrich

1,601
19
25

score 0 · Answer 41 · answered Jan 08 '19 at 18:42

For me the issue was that another project in the solution had the same .dll file which had been checked in more recently.

Manually copying the more recently checked in version of the .dll from the other project bin folder to bin folder in the project that was generating the error fixed the problem.

A longer term fix for our solution would be to use the same exact .dll for all projects in the solution instead of having the same .dll file in multiple projects but I didn't feel like tackling that so the quick-and-dirty solution was to just copy over the newer version.

score 0 · Answer 42 · answered Mar 24 '21 at 09:40

0

after trying almost everything just copy pasted the project on different location and built the project... and it worked.

answered Mar 24 '21 at 09:40

Er.Imran Shaikh

309
3
7

score 0 · Answer 43 · answered Jun 13 '21 at 04:23

0

Mine started happening after installing Windows Update KB5003637. My VS2019 project was running fine beforehand, but got this error after installing the Windows Update. Uninstalled it and project works again.

answered Jun 13 '21 at 04:23

Rick Agustin

11
2

score 0 · Answer 44 · answered Jun 30 '22 at 18:53

For those using Net.Core:

dotnet clear might solve sometimes, but the surefire way to solve this is to simply kill all and any dotnet running processes:

taskkill /im dotnet /f

Note that if you have other Rider/Visual Studio instances running, they'll drop.

Bizhan · Answer 45 · 2011-12-11T18:15:55.080

You aren't supposed to change the folder attribute to not-readonly. The reason you are seeing this error message is that source control assumes that you only store your miscellaneous files somewhere other than bin folder, for it it reserved for files that are automatically created by .Net and it doesn't want to add them to source control.

I suggest instead of using Environment.CurrectDirectory (which I assume you are using currently), you create a folder named "MyProjectName" in %appdata% address and then use:

System.IO.Path.Combine(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("appdata"),"YourProjectName").

score -1 · Answer 46 · answered Aug 08 '17 at 15:36

-1

If someone wants an extra simple solution before trying anything else.

Simply restart your PC. Open Visual Studio, try to build again.

answered Aug 08 '17 at 15:36

Blake Rivell

13,105
31
115
231

score -2 · Answer 47 · answered Jan 25 '19 at 02:01

-2

Simple Solution:

Just upgrade the following packages

Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform v1.0.5 to v1.0.7

It will resolve the issue.

answered Jan 25 '19 at 02:01

Dotnetpickles

1,016
8
13

Unable to copy file - access to the path is denied

47 Answers47

Linked